The Case of the Valdek Window

0:00 Sleet, Ration Books and a Wedding Invitation

0:04 Watson: A coal cart rattled down Baker Street below, its driver cursing the April sleet, while in our sitting room the wireless murmured the evening news. This was nineteen forty-nine, a winter of ration books and borrowed overcoats. For a week Holmes had been reorganising his index and I had been losing to him at chess. That Wednesday evening I sat at the desk with a wedding invitation from my old adjutant, and no coupons left for morning dress.

0:32 Holmes: Write it plainly, Watson. "Doctor Watson regrets he is unable to attend." Watson: I'd rather go. He was the best adjutant I ever had.

0:41 Holmes: Then go in your demob suit. No bride inspects lapels. Watson: His mother will. She once inspected my boots on parade.

0:50 Holmes: Then write "regrets, owing to the Board of Trade." True, and faintly seditious. Watson: You'd insult the government and the groom in a single line?

1:02 Holmes: Economy of phrase, my dear fellow. Blot it and... Watson: Holmes, the set's gone dead.

1:09 Ruth: Your landlady said you weren't to be disturbed. I've been disturbed since dawn. Holmes: Plainly. Watson, the lady has the advantage of us.

1:19 Ruth: My name is Ruth Ashby. Prague telephoned at dawn to tell me the man I'm to marry had killed himself at the Valdek Palace. Watson: Good Lord. Please, Miss Ashby, sit.

1:32 Ruth: I'll stand, Mr. Holmes. I want someone to look before he's buried. Holmes: Prague changed hands in February. Do you grasp what that means?

1:42 Ruth: I read the papers. Holmes: Then you know, Miss Ashby, an English detective asking questions inside their Treaty Ministry would have no standing. No papers. No one obliged to answer him. No—

1:55 Ruth: So he won't. Doctor Watson, will you? Watson: Wait. Wait a moment. They rang at dawn with the death and the verdict, both, in one breath. Doesn't that strike you?

2:07 Holmes: People are often brisk with bad news. Watson: Suicide, settled in Prague before London had breakfasted? Holmes, you've lectured me for years on conclusions that outrun their facts.

2:18 Holmes: I dislike having my own maxims served back to me. Ruth: Is that a yes? Holmes: It is a regret, Miss Ashby. Watson's, to the groom. He has been called abroad.

2:30 Watson: Then my morning dress troubles are over. Ruth: Thank you. Holmes: Your hat, Watson.

2:42 Watson: I posted my regrets at the pillar box on the corner, and did not look back.

2:48 Flowers Against the Railings at the Valdek Gate

2:52 Watson: Sovin Square lay grey under a low sky when Inspector Navratil of the Prague police met us at the Valdek gate, where strangers had heaped flowers against the railings. Navratil: Mr Holmes. Doctor. I am Navratil. Your Embassy asked, so the Ministry gives you one day.

3:11 Holmes: One day, and the verdict already announced. Navratil: Suicide. Minister Pospisil went from his bathroom window before dawn yesterday. The Ministry said so by nine.

3:22 Holmes: Brisk of them. Watson: Ministries say what suits them. These flowers say Prague doesn't believe a word of it.

3:29 Holmes: Look at them, Watson. Fifty bunches and not one card. People who loved him, and dare not sign their names.

3:38 Navratil: You see quickly. Then see also the two gentlemen by the church. Watson: Reading the same newspaper. Neither has turned a page since we arrived.

3:47 Navratil: Not my men. The Party's. They count who brings flowers. Watson: Charming.

3:53 Holmes: And who brings detectives. What do you want of me, Inspector? Navratil: The truth, if it is a small one. If this is murder, it was a thief, a quarrel, a madman. It was— it can't be political.

4:07 Watson: You've settled that before you've looked? Navratil: I've settled that I wish to keep my pension, Doctor. And my teeth.

4:15 Holmes: An honest policeman. Rarer here, I fancy, than a signed bouquet. Navratil: In Prague this month, one is careful. With everything.

4:25 Tall Cold Windows and a Red-Eyed Secretary

4:29 Watson: The office ran along a corridor of tall, cold windows, and as Navratil showed us in, a slight young man rose red-eyed from the secretary's desk. Tremayne: Mr Holmes? I'm Tremayne, his— I was his secretary. Nothing's been moved. I made sure of that.

4:47 Holmes: Spectacles on the blotter. Pen capped. Papers squared to the edge.

4:52 Tremayne: He hated a cluttered desk. He'd square them twice before he signed anything. Holmes: Strong lenses, Watson. Without these he could barely find his own door.

5:03 Watson: Unless he kept a second pair by the bed. Tremayne: He didn't. He was forever losing these and sending me to hunt. Holmes: Then he set them down meaning to come back. A man saying goodbye doesn't plan on reading.

5:17 Watson: And that's Miss Ashby, on the shelf. She sent us. Tremayne: Taken in London. They were to marry there in the spring. I'd begun the invitations...

5:27 Watson: Invitations. I know a little about those. Holmes: And this door?

5:33 Tremayne: Through to his flat. He'd knock on it when he wanted me. Midnight, sometimes.

5:38 Navratil: And the key, Mr Tremayne? Tremayne: He had one. I have the other. It's — it's here, on my ring.

5:46 Holmes: You were fond of him. Tremayne: He took me on when nobody else would... no Czech, no references, nothing at all— Watson: Steady, old chap.

5:56 Tremayne: He was kind to me, Mr Holmes. Kinder than I deserved.

6:01 A Courtyard of Black Cobbles

6:05 Watson: Three floors beneath the bathroom window lay a courtyard of black cobbles, rimed still in its corners, and a stocky guard stood waiting beside one stone. Holmes: You're Bartonicek. You found him.

6:17 Bartonicek: Here, sir, on this stone. On his back, in his pyjamas, the cobbles hard as iron. Watson: In pyjamas, on stone this cold. Was he cold when you—

6:28 Bartonicek: Cold as the stone, Doctor. I knew before I knelt. Watson: Ah.

6:34 Holmes: No lamp in this courtyard, and every window above it an office, dark at night. Bartonicek: Nothing burns here after dark, sir. A man could lie here till daylight and nobody the wiser.

6:46 Holmes: So only your round brought you through. Bartonicek: First light I unlock the kitchens. I saw something pale and— I took it for washing. Blown off a line.

6:57 Watson: Washing. Good God. Bartonicek: Then I saw his bare feet. Nobody knew till a quarter past six, sir. Not a soul in this palace.

7:07 Holmes: You're very sure of that quarter. Bartonicek: Those bells, sir. Sovin chimed it while I knelt. I've heard them every morning for three years.

7:17 Watson: Fair enough. Holmes: Good. That's a clock we can trust.

7:21 Bartonicek: I put my greatcoat over him. He'd have hated being seen so.

7:26 The Head of the Stair, by the Minister's Front Door

7:30 Watson: The guardroom stood at the head of the stair, by the minister's front door; Bartonicek brought us up to it, and a broad, easy-going man rose from a chair by the stove. Kostka: Mr Holmes, Doctor. Kostka. Come to the stove. The stairs in this palace are colder than the street.

7:48 Holmes: How was that last night kept? Two men, surely, for a— Bartonicek: Two of us till ten, sir. Then Kostka sent me down to the gate. The gate man had gone sick.

7:57 Kostka: Third time this month. His chest, he says. Holmes: Is it, now.

8:02 Bartonicek: So Kostka kept the guardroom alone. I had the gate and the square till my morning round. Kostka: Alone with the stove. I'd sooner have had his company.

8:13 Watson: And you heard nothing from the flat? Not a window, not a cry? Kostka: The bathroom is at the far end, Doctor, over the courtyard. From this chair you hear the stove and the wind.

8:24 Bartonicek: It was quiet after nine, I'll grant. Before that it wasn't. I passed the office about nine. The minister was shouting at Mr Tremayne: "Not one more day at that desk." I never heard him raise his voice before.

8:39 Holmes: Not one more day. You hear that, Watson? He sacked him.

8:43 Bartonicek: Mr Tremayne came out white as a plate, sir. Kostka: Poor boy. He brought me coffee most mornings.

8:51 Holmes: Two guards, then one, for the last man in that cabinet who answers to no party. Somebody economised. Kostka: Short of men since February, Mr Holmes. Everybody is.

9:04 Saving the Bathroom for Last

9:08 Watson: Navratil had saved the bathroom for last. We passed two suitcases packed in the hall, their straps undone, and he showed us in like a host proud of a room, while Kostka stood in the doorway. Navratil: Mind your feet. The window, open as we found it. And these, all over the tiles.

9:26 Watson: Barbiturate, by the look. I've prescribed enough of it. Half a dozen would leave a man stupid inside the hour.

9:33 Holmes: The sill is at my hip, Inspector. One doesn't fall from a window like that. One climbs, or one is lifted.

9:41 Navratil: Or one is made stupid first, and then lifted. Holmes: Was there a bottle? Navratil: In the basin. A chemist on Tovarna Street, made up for the minister. Dated the day before he died.

9:54 Holmes: He'd hardly had them a day. Did a minister queue at the chemist— Navratil: Ministers do not queue. Kostka, you were on the stair.

10:02 Kostka: Tremayne fetched those tablets himself. After lunch. He came up past me with the parcel.

10:08 Watson: A secretary collecting his master's prescription. Hardly sinister. Navratil: No, Doctor. But convenient.

10:16 Holmes: Convenient for whom? Navratil: For me, Mr Holmes. A small truth, as I told you at the gate.

10:23 Watson: Well. That's candid. Navratil: Then we must speak to Mr Tremayne.

10:30 The Chair Facing the Secretary's Desk

10:34 Watson: We went back down to the office, where Tremayne had not stirred from his desk, and this time Navratil took the chair facing him. Navratil: Mr Tremayne. Bartonicek tells me he heard shouting from this room at nine, the night the minister died.

10:48 Tremayne: Everyone's shouted, this last fortnight. He was— he was tired. Navratil: Tired men don't throw their secretaries out of—

10:56 Tremayne: He... yes. All right. He dismissed me.

11:00 Holmes: Sacked at night, and still at his desk two mornings on, Mr Tremayne. Why? Tremayne: Somebody had to sort his papers. Somebody who cared.

11:11 Navratil: The tablets you fetched for him lie all over his bathroom floor. Tremayne: He asked me for them! He hadn't slept a whole night in—

11:19 Navratil: And you have the key to that door. Into his flat, past no guard at all. Tremayne: I never touched it that night, I never—

11:25 Navratil: Where did you sleep? Tremayne: At home. In my lodgings. Mr Holmes, I swear to you, I went— I went home and slept.

11:35 Navratil: Did you. Watson: Inspector, the boy's lost his post and his master in a single— Navratil: His master lost more, Doctor.

11:42 Holmes: You'll not say why he dismissed you? You're only making it worse for yourself, you know. Tremayne: Saying it'd cost more. It was between him and me.

11:51 Navratil: Dismissed at nine, dead by dawn. Why did he sack you?

11:57 A Pencilled Report Read at the Window

12:01 Watson: Within the hour a sergeant had brought Navratil a pencilled report from Tremayne's lodgings, and the inspector read it standing by the window while the boy watched him. Navratil: Mr Tremayne. You swore to Mr Holmes that you went home and slept.

12:17 Tremayne: I did. Navratil: His landlady keeps a careful house, Mr Holmes. Sheets turned down, a stone bottle at the foot, gone cold. His bed was never slept in.

12:30 Tremayne: She's old, she muddles her days— Navratil: She was up at six for the milk. Your door stood open on an empty room.

12:36 Watson: That's an old woman's word against a young man's, Inspector, and you can't— Navratil: Then let the young man give me a better word. Where were you?

12:45 Tremayne: Somewhere. Not— not there. Not near him.

12:49 Navratil: Kostka sat by that stair all night and saw nobody. Naturally. You did not need the stair.

12:56 Tremayne: That's not— Holmes: The key on your ring opens that door from this side, and nobody in the guardroom would hear it turn. Tremayne: It opens, yes. But I never turned it, not that night.

13:07 Holmes: Then tell me where you were, and I'll believe you. Tremayne: I can't. Holmes: A lie sworn to my face, a key, a quarrel, and the tablets. I can't answer one of them, Watson.

13:20 Watson: Holmes, you can't mean to— Holmes: Take him, Inspector. Tremayne: Mr Holmes, I'd have cut off my own hand before I hurt him. Please, you must believe me. Please!

13:32 Coffee From a Tin Jug

13:36 Watson: Kostka was pouring coffee from a tin jug when Navratil led us upstairs again, the police van already gone from the gate below. Kostka: Coffee, gentlemen? My own brew. Nobody brings it up now.

13:49 Holmes: Thank you, no. Mr Kostka, Miss Ashby knew in London before your Ministry had spoken. Who told her? Kostka: I did. Only I rang Miss Ashby. Once, from here, on that telephone.

14:02 Watson: Why you? Surely that's work for the Ministry, or our Embassy. Kostka: Every evening I placed his London call for him, Doctor. Mine was the first voice she heard. Better me than some clerk reading off a form.

14:16 Holmes: So the minister's telephone ran through this room. Every word he spoke to London passed this chair first. Navratil: Kostka is State Security, Mr Holmes. Of course it does. You're surprised?

14:29 Holmes: Only that you say it so calmly. Navratil: Since February I have had a great deal of practice. Holmes: Then calmly, Inspector. At what hour did—

14:39 Navratil: Enough. A guard did his duty, kindly. The guards told the lady. The file is closed.

14:46 Carbolic and Wet Plaster

14:50 Watson: Carbolic and wet plaster were the smell of the cells in Hrozna Street, and late that afternoon a warder let Holmes and me in to Tremayne alone. Good God, man. Who did that to your face?

15:03 Tremayne: A sergeant with a wedding ring. The ring did the cutting. Watson: Hold still. Nothing broken. That cheekbone wants a cold cloth and a week.

15:13 Holmes: They asked where you were, and you didn't tell them either. Tremayne: Then they'll go on asking. I've nothing for them.

15:20 Holmes: A man who'd rather be beaten than answer is guarding something he thinks worse than a murder charge. Shame, I fancy, not guilt. Tremayne: You fancy a lot, Mr Holmes, for the man who handed me over.

15:33 Holmes: I gave them the lie you gave me. Tell me the truth and I'll have you out. Tremayne: The truth? He'd stopped trusting me. Long before he— long before he shouted. Every letter in that office went through my hands, every one, and then at noon that last day he took his own coat off the hook, walked out past my desk, and posted an envelope to Miss Ashby himself.

15:58 Watson: A man may post his own love letter, surely. Tremayne: Two a week for a year, Doctor, and I posted every one. You've done enough, Mr Holmes.

16:08 Dusk on the Bridge, the Stone Saints Gone Black

16:12 Watson: Dusk was settling on the Charles Bridge as Holmes and I walked back across the river, the stone saints along its parapet gone black above the water. That boy's face, Holmes. We put it there.

16:25 Holmes: Navratil's sergeant put it there. Now say it, Watson. You've been chewing on it for half a mile.

16:31 Watson: Very well. He fetched the tablets. His bed's untouched, and he lied about it. He has a key and a grievance, and it's all very—

16:40 Holmes: Tidy. And you dislike tidy. Watson: I dislike that sill. Hip high. A doped man might be tipped over it. A man awake would fight, and Tremayne's... well, he's built like a sparrow.

16:54 Holmes: Then the drug is the whole case. Without it, Navratil has a boy who couldn't lift a coal scuttle. Watson: I'll see the body myself, Holmes. Tonight, at the mortuary.

17:04 Holmes: Good man.

17:06 Near Midnight in Navratil's Office

17:09 Watson: Near midnight I climbed to Navratil's office, two floors above the cells, with the pathologist's report in my coat; Holmes sat waiting by a dead stove. Navratil: Well, Doctor? You've kept our pathologist from his bed.

17:24 Watson: He was glad of someone to argue with. Stomach, blood, the lot. No sleeping drug in him at all.

17:31 Navratil: The man had a bottle, with his name on it. Watson: Which he never touched. And he was a big man, Inspector. Fourteen stone, with shoulders like a coal heaver's.

17:42 Navratil: And still Tremayne fetched those tablets himself, and they lay all over that floor. That hasn't changed. Holmes: No. Only what they mean.

17:52 Watson: And Tremayne couldn't throw a man that size if the fellow were half dead, let alone wide awake. Navratil: So the boy had help. Or a lucky night.

18:01 Holmes: Or someone strewed those tablets on the tiles to hand us the boy. Then we've put the wrong man in your cells.

18:09 A Cupboard With a Desk and a Blackout Blind

18:13 Watson: Next morning the Embassy lent us its telephone room, a cupboard with a desk and a blackout blind nobody had troubled to take down, and Holmes sat waiting on his London call.

18:30 Holmes: Holmes speaking. Miss Ashby? Ruth: I've been sitting by this thing since six. Tell me.

18:36 Holmes: Not yet. First, the last time you heard his voice. Ruth: The evening before he died. He said, "The resignation's signed, Ruthie. I fly tomorrow."

18:48 Watson: Then he was coming home to you, not ending anything. Ruth: I'd bought a hat for the airport. A ridiculous hat, Doctor, with a — with a little... I'm sorry. I'm all right. Ask me.

19:03 Holmes: Since that evening, how many calls from Prague? Ruth: One. At ten past five, their time. A man saying he'd— that he'd jumped, and where was his signed resignation? Had he sent it to me?

19:17 Watson: Heavens. Holmes: Their time. You're certain?

19:22 Ruth: My bedside clock keeps Prague time. I set it an hour fast when he went home, so I'd know when he was waking. Holmes: Four in the morning in London, then. Grief can wait for breakfast, Miss Ashby. That caller couldn't.

19:36 Ruth: He kept on about the letter. Not about me. The letter.

19:41 Holmes: Then I'll ask what he asked. Where's the resignation, Miss Ashby? Ruth: Why ask me for it, Mr Holmes? Nothing has come.

19:52 A Cell Door and a Folded Report

19:57 Watson: The warder had scarcely turned his key before Navratil was past him into Tremayne's cell, the pathologist's report folded in his fist, Holmes and I at his back. Navratil: Up, Mr Tremayne. Your coat.

20:09 Tremayne: Another sergeant, Inspector? I've told them nothing. I'll tell you—

20:13 Navratil: You go home. Our pathologist is plain about it. No sleeping drug in him at all, so your tablets hang nobody.

20:21 Tremayne: Then I'm... I can just walk out? Navratil: Out of my cells. Not out of my file.

20:27 Watson: Turn that cheek to the light first. It's closing clean. Keep it out of the wind.

20:32 Holmes: One debt remains, Inspector. His bed was never slept in, and he swore otherwise to my face. Tremayne: What does it matter now? He's dead either way.

20:43 Holmes: Then there's no reason left to keep it. Where were you? Navratil: And my file still wants a reason for the sacking.

20:51 Tremayne: I owed money. Cards. Twelve thousand— twelve thousand crowns, to a man in the Old Town.

20:59 Watson: On a secretary's pay? Good Lord. Tremayne: So I borrowed more. I told the lender the minister stood behind me. I traded on his name.

21:08 Holmes: And a lender in this city, this month, doesn't wait. He came to the palace to collect. Tremayne: That evening. He sent his card up. The minister read it, and called me in—

21:20 Tremayne: He wasn't even angry at first. Then he was. Holmes: So the shouting at nine was a lender's bill. And with no post and no wages, you went off to win it—

21:29 Tremayne: Back. Yes. All night at an Old Town card table, losing.

21:37 Past Three in the Morning at an Unlit Window

21:41 Watson: Neither of us slept at the Hotel Brevan; somewhere past three I found Holmes in his dressing gown at the unlit window, watching the castle lamps across the river. Holmes: Two clocks, Watson. And nobody can get at either one.

21:56 Watson: The Sovin bells. And Miss Ashby's, by her bed. Holmes: The bells say he lay on those stones unknown until Bartonicek knelt, at the quarter after six.

22:06 Watson: And her clock says a man rang London a little after five, to tell her he'd jumped. Holmes: You heard Bartonicek, and you've seen the body. How long had he been dead when that guard touched him?

22:18 Watson: Cold as the stone, in pyjamas, on a frost like that. An hour at the least. Nearer two, I'd say.

22:25 Holmes: Then the death came first, the telephone second, the bells third. The order is the whole case. Watson: Could the Ministry have heard sooner, and passed it on?

22:36 Holmes: The Ministry knew nothing until the palace woke. Nobody in Prague had the news to give. Watson: But somebody gave it.

22:43 Holmes: Then who knew first, Watson, and how?

22:46 A London Cable at the Palace Railings

22:50 Watson: A London cable had reached the Embassy at eight, and by nine we stood with Navratil at the palace railings while Bartonicek stamped warmth into his boots beside the sentry box. Holmes: From London, Inspector. A man rang Miss Ashby from Prague a few minutes after five, the morning he died, to say he'd jumped.

23:09 Navratil: After five. Holmes: She's given that hour to The Courier. They print it tomorrow, with her name beneath it.

23:16 Navratil: And the Party will call it an English slander. Bartonicek: After five, sir? But he was— he was lying out there in the dark then. I never knelt by him till the bells.

23:27 Navratil: Then you'll say so. On paper, with your name, today. Bartonicek: Kostka is Security, Inspector. A man who signs against Security...

23:38 Navratil: Signs against one guard. Write it so: from ten until dawn, Kostka kept the guardroom alone. Bartonicek: He did. I'll swear to that much, and gladly.

23:49 Navratil: Nobody knew till a quarter past six, when you found him. You'll swear that also. Bartonicek: Put down one thing more, then, sir. I ran up the stair and told Kostka. Twenty past six. He was the first soul I told.

24:03 Holmes: Twenty past six, then. The first man in Prague to hear of it, and not a minute before. Bartonicek: That's right, sir.

24:10 Watson: Inspector, you understand where that leaves your guardroom. Navratil: I understand, Doctor. One rogue guard I can live with. The Party in The Courier, I cannot.

24:22 The Smell of Scorched Coffee

24:26 Watson: The guardroom smelled of scorched coffee when we climbed to it; Kostka was rinsing his jug at the stove, and he smiled as Holmes lifted the receiver and asked for London. Kostka: The line is slow before nine, Mr Holmes. Sit by the stove while it comes.

24:42 Holmes: You told us, standing just there, "Only I rang Miss Ashby." At what hour? Kostka: After the alarm, naturally. Bartonicek came up, I rang the Ministry, then the lady. Half past six, near enough.

24:56 Navratil: Half past six. You're certain. Kostka: Certain as I'm standing here, Inspector.

25:08 Holmes: Miss Ashby? Holmes. I want you to hear a voice. Mr Kostka, wish the lady good morning.

25:14 Kostka: Good morning, Miss Ashby. My condolences, again. Ruth: That's him. For a year that voice put me through to Prague every evening. I'd know it in my sleep.

25:26 Navratil: Madam, this is the police. He says he rang you at half past six, Prague time. Ruth: He rang once, Inspector. At ten past five, by a clock I set to Prague. Never again. I sat up waiting.

25:42 Kostka: She was asleep, she was dreaming— Ruth: I wasn't dreaming when you asked me for the letter. Kostka: I— no...

25:49 Holmes: Thank you, Miss Ashby. Bartonicek found him at a quarter past six and brought the news up this stair at twenty past. Your voice was in London an hour before either.

26:02 Watson: With the man still lying unfound in the dark. Holmes: You didn't report a death, Mr Kostka. You described one, before anyone else alive could.

26:12 Kostka: I sat at that stove all night, I never left this— Holmes: You sat alone. You arranged that at ten, when you sent Bartonicek down.

26:20 Kostka: You think this is about a fall? It's about a paper! His resignation, telling London the Party stole this country. The man who stopped it would have had his stripes. She has it in London, and you let her keep it—

26:32 Navratil: Only the man on the wire knew that. And only the man at the window knew at five that he was dead. You're under arrest.

26:40 Rain on the Panes at Teatime

26:44 Watson: From my journal, the last page of the Prague business: rain was on the panes in Baker Street at teatime when Mrs Hudson brought two callers to our door. Mrs Hudson: Miss Ashby, Mr Holmes, and Mr Tremayne, with a face I'd put a cold compress on. Tremayne: It's mending, Mrs Hudson. Doctor Watson's orders.

27:04 Ruth: Navratil cabled this morning. Kostka is charged with murder. Not suicide. Murder.

27:12 Holmes: Ah. Watson: Then tell me the part I can't make sit straight, Holmes. Why ring her at all? Why take the—

27:18 Holmes: Because he'd killed a man for a letter, and the letter wasn't in the flat. He'd heard it promised on his own wire: signed, and flying tomorrow. Watson: So he took it for packed and ready.

27:30 Holmes: It was already gone. Tremayne told us in the cells: at noon the minister walked past his desk and posted an envelope to Miss Ashby himself. Tremayne: I thought it was me he didn't trust. It was never me, was it? It was the telephone.

27:46 Ruth: It came this morning. I wanted it opened here. His resignation. Signed. And a note, in pencil.

27:56 Watson: Well, I'm blessed. Ruth: "Ruthie. They listen to my telephone. Tonight I'll tell you it's signed, and that I fly tomorrow." "Let them think the paper is in my luggage, and turn it over. By then it will be safe with you."

28:13 Tremayne: Oh, sir... Watson: He knew they were— good Lord, he knew they were listening. He made his last call for the eavesdropper.

28:24 Holmes: And the eavesdropper hunted his luggage in vain, then woke London to ask. Ruth: The Courier can print his words. This paper, with his hand on it, I'm keeping.

28:36 Tremayne: He wrote that at his desk, and I never— I never saw. He was cleverer than all of us. Watson: I still owe that groom a proper apology. Should I simply ring him?

28:48 Holmes: Write it, and post it yourself. Never telephone, Watson.